It’s been said that a political campaign is run on the poetry of promises, while the task of governing is about the prose of policy. As President-Elect Barack Obama sheds his poetic cloak and has to become a wordsmith of a different sort, there are a myriad of emotions in this post-election/transition time that Americans are certainly feeling. Will Obama be like FDR, Jimmy Carter, or Bill Clinton? It’s too soon to tell, but one thing is certain: Obama won not because of a political crisis like Watergate, or because a third party candidate split up the vote allowing him to squeak in, but because a clear majority voted for his campaign of hope and change. What many Americans hope for is that Obama will be a transformative leader who is able to steer the ship of state in another direction; a direction that will bring greater prosperity, less cynicism, and more cooperation in the culture at large.

It will be an interesting time for Reagan revolutionaries, too. Many conservatives are big admirers of FDR.
They are impressed by his patrician demeanor during a crisis, his ability to explain governmental action to Americans via his “Fireside Chats” (where he would often start his address with “My Friends”– which should sound familiar to those who listened to John McCain’s speeches), the way he and his administration had the political acumen to reshape the Executive Branch, and, above all, the way his policies won the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans. In Reagan, conservatives thought they had their FDR that would realign the political map so conservatives would hold power, much like New Deal Liberals did. It didn’t quite go the way they envisioned. Now that most Americans have clearly rejected the politics of resentment (and “Joe the Plumber” as its poster boy) in favor of a pragmatic activism, it will be interesting to see if the prose of Obama’s leadership proves to be a strong enough tonic to put the politics of resentment into remission. (more…)